You Know U Desi If…
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your dad is some sort of engineer or doctor
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your mother has a short-haired, curly perm
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your parents still tried to get you into places half-price saying you were 12 when you were really 15
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you ask your parents help on one math problem and 2 hours later they’re still lecturing
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you have a 40 lb. bag of rice in your pantry
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everyone thinks you’re “Pakistani” no matter what part of South Asia your ancestors were from
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you’ve had a bowl haircut at one point in your life.
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your parents enjoy comparing you to their friends’ kids.
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you’ve had to sit through videos with scantily clad, ugly Asian women attempting to dance and walk around a temple, forest or library.
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your parents say, “Don’t forget your heritage.”
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you drive mostly Japanese cars.
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you’ve learned to keep bargaining even if the prices are rock bottom.
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you know what’s going to happen in every hindi movie before it happens.
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you’ve never gotten little red envelopes around February.
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piles of shoes tend to make it hard to open the front, back and closet doors.
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your father and grandfathers have hair on their ears
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idiot people try to impress you with pathetic imitation Asian languages.
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your ancestors 1000 generations back invented the back scratcher.
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at least one family member wears black wire/plastic frame glasses.
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your parents hover over your tired, caffeine-drugged body at 12 midnight to say, “In India (or other native country), we studied even more.”
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your parents expect you’ll be best friends with any one of the street in any given area as long as they are Asian.
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an Asian woman comes on campus and people ask: “Is that your mother? Well then, is it your sister?”
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your relatives’ houses smell like incense, mothballs or both
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your parents say, “Calculus? I took calculus in 8th grade!!”
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everyone thinks you’re good at math.
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you like $1.75 movies
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you like $1.50 movies even more.
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your aunts and uncles bring you back adorable clothing from Asia with fuzzy bunnies, vinyl ducks and English words that make no sense, in great colors like yellow, pink, magenta, orange and the ever popular lime green.
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your parents insist you marry within your race.
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you either really, really want to go to NYU or really, really want to stay away from it.
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your parents have never kissed you
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you learned about the birds and the bees from someone other than your parents
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“You want a stereo!” When I was your age, I didn’t even have shoes!!"
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you have to call just about all your parent’s friends “Auntie and Uncle.”
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you have 12+ aunts and uncles from both your mother’s and your father’s side.
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at expensive restaurants, you order a delicious glass of water for your beverage and NEVER order dessert.
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your parents simply cut the green/black part off the bread and say “Eat it anyway. It’s still good.”
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the vast majority of the people related to you wear glasses. Thick glasses.
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you will most likely be taller than your parents.
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your parents have either made you play the piano, the violin or both.
41 you get nothing if you do well in school, but crapped on if you don’t.
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when going to other peoples’ houses, you always have to bring a gift.
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your dad still pulls his socks up to his knees, you know, the ones with the blue and pink stripes at the top.
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your family owns a tennis racquet.
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your family always cheers for the Asian athlete on TV (i.e. Michael \Chang)
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the furniture in your house never matches the wallpaper, the carpet, the decorations or any of the rest of the furniture.
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you have rocks, sticks, leaves and strange-smelling, unknown substances in your pantry for use as medicine.
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you own a rice cooker for four.
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you buy corn oil by the gallon.
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your family owns butcher knives bigger than your head.
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your parents tell you about how long it took for them to get to school, how horrible the weather was in their native country, and how much they still appreciated going.
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your parents buy you clothes and shoes many sizes too big so you can “grow into it” and wear it for years to come."
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your parents own two refrigeraters
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you’re not allowed to purchase anything unless you have a coupon or it’s on sale
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Your parents favorite question at a restaurant - “do you have extra jalepenos/tobasco sauce?”
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you’re going to be the proud owner of your father’s motel/dry cleaners/gas station when you grow up
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your parents have to know your friends’, father’s, cousin’s, in-laws, dog’s first, middle and last name, as well as complete life history, before they’re acceptable
